Create Home Directories with Long Filenames

In the true spirit of community, Craig Wilson found a way to create home directories with long filenames, but best of all, he did it with a tool you've all got in your arsenal: login scripts.

Craig works for Computer Science Corportation, and he provides full-time services to the U.S. Navy in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania as an NT and Novell consultant. He's received just about every certification there is CNE, MCSE, and Cisco Certified Network Associate. When he's not supporting the Navy or working on a new certification, you can find Craig playing bridge, following any and all sports, and studying the works of Dogbert.

In the batch of Q&A you published on November 11, someone asked if there were any utilties which support long filenames that you can use to create home directories. I've done this before via the login script. Here's what you need to do:

In the login script, set a dos environment (ex. lid) variable using
%CN or %1 to the users login id.

This batch file will create a directory named the same as the user who
logs in to the network. It will assign the user full rights to the
directory just created and place a filter on the network to prevent
anyone else from seeing this directory. For this to work, the user
needs Create authority to the directory in which user directories are to
be created.

Optional Security if you have ZENworks

Assign the batch file to be run with system impersonation either via
the Novell Scheduler using Workstation Mgr or using NAL w/Zen20.

Assign all the workstation objects the Create authority to the NetWare
volume via a workstation group that contains all workstations.

This should not be a security problem because a user can't interactively
use any rights assigned to the workstation object. (These rights are in use only while running a scheduled event with system impersonation or a NAL app set to system impersonation.)